Before The Kiss
by She's a Star
Summary: When the future appears tragically bleak, Narcissa and Lucius find themselves instead turning to the past.


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Before The Kiss

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by She's a Star

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Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.

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Author's Note: This is for Bohemian Storm, who was quite insistent on my writing this in the first place, and helped me _a lot_ with the fic when I was downright determined that I couldn't write anything pertaining to Lucius. The end of this was incredibly hard for me to write: it was undoubtedly the most emotional writing experience I've had thus far. *siiighs* I still feel a bit like I'm going to faint. But I'm fine. Yup.

Read on!

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Outside, the snow fell. 

It glistened and sparkled, lazy flakes of white carelessly spiraling toward the shimmering ground. The spindling, leafless trees were coated in fine layers, somehow startlingly clear. 

Outside, it was beautiful.

But it was a chilling sort of beauty.

Narcissa watched him in silence for a moment; he stared out the window, steely gray eyes far off and almost sad. It was so strange, seeing emotion in those eyes for the first time.

The first and the last.

"Lucius," she said softly. 

He did not turn to face her.

"Narcissa," he returned evenly.

The silence resumed, and she found herself hating it. All there had ever been between them was silence; silence and averted gazes and a cold that displayed itself so perfectly outside that window.

She wanted desperately to say something, anything, but knew that she couldn't. It wasn't her place and it never had been. 

Some silences weren't meant to be broken.

But this...this didn't seem right, didn't seem natural. People who had been married for nearly eighteen years weren't meant to act like strangers around one another.

"I remember the first time I saw you."

Her heart skipped a beat; she suddenly felt a bit dizzy. They'd never thrown teasing flirtations back and forth, much less unbearingly sentimental proclamations of love.

"You were blocking my view of that _gorgeous_ redhead across the room."

Ah yes. There was her husband.

"Please, darling, don't be so pitifully emotional," she deadpanned. "It's downright embarrassing."

"What can I say?" he asked, voice smooth and mocking. She knew he was smirking to himself. "You have that effect on me."

Eighteen years.

Eighteen years she'd been with this man, and she barely knew him at all.

Now she only had five, perhaps ten minutes and then...

She didn't want to think about 'and then'.

"What do you think it would have been like?" she asked, the words flowing out of her mouth before she could stop them. "If things had been different? If you hadn't...supported Him?"

He looked up at her, expression almost skeptical.

"You're not serious."

She felt her cheeks grow warm, but ignored it.

"Humor me, bastard."

He narrowed his eyes at her scathingly for a moment before silence resumed again. 

_Oh, what's the point?_ she thought bitterly.

But she couldn't leave.

Not now. Not when...

"We'd probably be dead," he said flatly. 

She glared at him. "You have _no_ imagination."

"What do you _want_ me to say, Narcissa?" he asked, taunting her. "That we'd have lived happily ever after with a white picket fence and a puppy called Rover? That we'd have grown old together and all that sentimental foolishness?"

"I don't know," she said, trying to keep her voice confident and sarcastic. "God knows what horrors we would have had to face if you'd actually loved me."

"I never said I didn't love you."

"You never said you did."

Something that felt distinctly awkward seemed to surround them, and Narcissa decided it best to change the subject.

"Have you talked to Draco?"

His gaze had fallen back outside the window again.

"What is there to say?" he asked tonelessly.

"What is there to say?!" she repeated incredulously. "Lucius, he's your _son_; you have to talk to him!"

He was silent as he watched the snowflakes drift lazily to the ground. 

"Tell him to live happily ever after with a white picket fence and a puppy called Rover." His voice was dry.

Narcissa smirked. "A bit harsh, isn't it? Wishing that upon your own son?"

"He'll handle it," Lucius replied simply.

It went quiet again.

"Is that all?" she prodded.

He paused. "It's all he'll want to hear."

Narcissa nodded, though she knew he couldn't see her. His eyes were still fixed intently outside.

She knew what he was thinking of.

"Do you remember?" he asked, voice barely a whisper.

Tentatively, she made her way a bit closer to him, perching on the arm of the chair next to his.

"Yes."

_She knew that he was scared, and she knew that he hated himself for it._

He had flown into this without considering - he'd seen power, greatness, wealth and luxury. The Dark Lord had blinded him, and now he was scared. 

She had never thought it possible of him; she'd been certain that he wouldn't care. He was, after all, a Death Eater now - when she'd first discovered that wretched mark on his forearm a few weeks before, something had made him inhuman in her mind. He was merely a shell of a man, handsome and charming but without any true emotions, any true feeling. Numb.

Now she knew that he was very much alive; he simply hid it effortlessly.

Outside it wasn't dark, though it was barely five in the morning; merely gray against the brilliantly white snow. He hadn't come inside, but she knew that he was home - she'd been watching him from the windowsill for what seemed hours.

He looked shaken as he paced back and forth like a caged tiger, absently staring down at his hands. 

She knew at once that he had killed someone.

And though she hadn't expected it, she also knew that he'd never killed someone before.

She should have been scared of him - the man she had married five months before was a murderer, a ruthless killer following the most powerful dark lord in history.

But she wasn't scared.

She rose from the windowsill with a tragic sort of grace, took her thin silk robe, and shrugged it over her slim body. The cold marble chilled her bare feet as she quickly made her way down the corridor and stairs; she opened the front door with a soft click and stepped outside into the snow. 

The cold, dry air immediately enveloped her, and she shivered involuntarily before taking a step toward him. He looked over, but his eyes weren't cold.

Merely shaken. Scared. Almost vulnerable - or as vulnerable, she supposed, as he could ever be.

Silently, she made her way toward him and wrapped her arms around him, not quite certain why. And surprisingly, he didn't mock her, didn't push her away, didn't sneer and fire scathing remarks her way.

He simply hugged her back, and around them, the snow fell.

"You're allowed to be afraid, you know," she said tentatively, finally voicing what she'd wanted to tell him for eighteen years.

He laughed shortly. "What's there to fear?"

It was an insane question; he had so many things to be scared of. In mere moments, they would be here. And then...all would be lost. _He_ would be lost.

"Everything," she responded weakly.

He looked at her again - a wry smile played at the corners of his lips. "Narcissa, I-"

A quick, impatient rap on the door interrupted him.

And in that instant, a fear seized up inside of her - a fear that made her ache, a fear that made her head spin and tears well up in her eyes. 

Lucius had done terrible things; God, she knew that. Unforgivable things.

But no one deserved this. 

They couldn't do this.

"Come in," he called. He sounded so calm, so nonchalant, so completely unaffected.

Cornelius Fudge stepped inside, lime-green bowler hat held under one arm. 

"Narcissa," he said with a brisk nod.

She couldn't bring herself to do anything; she felt numbed; this couldn't be happening, not truly...

"Lucius, the Dementor is waiting outside with Arthur Weasley," said Fudge tersely. "The Kiss is scheduled to be performed any minute. Please don't give us any difficulties, it's-"

"I assure you, Fudge, I won't make this unnecessarily difficult," Lucius cut in, standing up and walking over to the Minister. "It would be a waste of time and effort to try to escape the unavoidable."

Fudge looked greatly relieved. "Thank you, Lucius."

Narcissa watched the scene as though trapped in a nightmare; it couldn't be happening, it couldn't...

"Good day, Narcissa," Fudge said, still looking quite unsettled as he made his way toward the door. Lucius followed him.

She hated the tears that had welled up in her eyes and were no doubt trickling down her cheeks right now, but knew that there was no way to fight them. She could feel herself shivering violently; everything seemed so far away...

"Narcissa."

Lucius fixed his gaze on her.

"Lucius," she replied faintly, forcing a smile.

He studied her, and for a split-second she could see a flicker of sadness in his expressionless eyes.

"I love you," he said simply; the words weren't drenched in sickly, false sentiment, and the mocking that seemed ever-present in his tone had disappeared. It was simply a statement. Simply something true.

And then he was gone; she could hear brisk footsteps on the marble, fading slowly into nothingness.

Trembling, she looked out the window; a very perturbed Arthur Weasley stood a good twenty feet away from the Dementor that would steal away her husband's soul. She hated that creature, passionately hated its cold blackness that contrasted so wretchedly against the fresh, glowing snow.

And then the door opened, and she watched as her husband and Fudge stepped outside. Fudge exchanged a few words with Arthur Weasley, and she watched her husband. He began to pace back and forth, sneaking glances at the Dementor.

Memories came flooding back to her, of that night, that moment in which she hadn't just been his pretty young trophy wife.

Her tears ceased as she stood up suddenly - abandoning all grace, she ran down the stairs and to the front door. Her heart pounded rapidly in her head; she felt as though she would lose consciousness at any moment.

She swung open the door at once; Fudge and Arthur Weasley were still talking, as though wanting to put off the inevitable until the last moment possible.

Silently, she made her way toward him and wrapped her arms around him, knowing exactly why and aware that the reason couldn't be put into words. And he didn't mock her, didn't push her away, didn't pretend to hide the fact that he was scared of what was to come.

He simply hugged her back, and around them, the snow fell.

FIN 

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End file.
